lives of william pinkney, william ellery, and cotton mather

I .

."".1' :.Ea :L: .. GE.lllLl.\. :r.r 1:' ( --....)

---:J or) (

~~n1!~A~~~iGit~lf1~ _____ CO~UU(·Tr.D BY -

BO§TON. PUBLISHE D BY 1IIJ.!.IARD.G1RA Yk co.

lLONDON. RICHARD JA.MI~§ KENNETT.

Digitized by Goog I e

THE

LIBRARY

OF

AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY.

OONDUOTED

Dr JARED SPARKS.

VOL. VI •

•

BOSTON:

BILLIARD, GRA.Y, A.ND CO.

LONDON:

RICHARD .JAMES KElun:TT.

1836.

Digitized by Goog Ie

LIVES

01'

WILLIAM PINKNEY,

WILLIAM ELLERY,

AND

COTTON MATHER.

BOSTON:

1I1LLIARD, GRAY, AND CO.

LONDON:

RrCHARD lAMES KEJ!IINETT.

1836.


Entered Rccordiog I" act or CODg1a8 ill !be year 18ae, byJAR.DS .... ".,

in tbe Clerk'. Ollie<' 0( tbe DI_Irkt C8art of Ihe Ililtricc GfMlIIMcllueetl ..

CAMBRIDGE: rOLBOM, WBLLS, AND THURIITOr.;,

.alln&81 TO THE Ul'fI"."ITI'.


CONTENTS.

LIFE OF WILLIAM PINK.NJ:Y,

By Buay WHEATON.

LIFE OF WILLIAM ELLERY,

By EDWAlIJ) T. CBANNINCl.

CHAPTER I.

His Birth, Early Years, Marriage, ami Pro-

ha

l

fessitnt. • . . . . • . . . • . • 87

CHAPTER II.

Mr. Ellerg is elected to Congrm. - Signs t~ Declaratitm of Irukpettdmce. -IIis &nneel in the Old Congress. - Extracts from Ais Ditrl'!I. - His Character as a Publie Man .• ...•.••..... 1M


,i CONT EN'I'S,

CHAPTER III.

Withdraws Himself from Public Life. - His Writings. - His Opinions on various Top-ics. - Habi.ts in his declining Years. - His Death. - Remarks on his Character. . . 129

LIFE OF COTTON MATHER,

By WILLIAM B. O. PEABODY.

CHAPTER I.

The Mather Family. - Early Education of Cotton Mather. -He enters Harvard College. - His Studious Habits and Religious Impressions. - His Prayers and Fasts.His "Essays to do Good." - Settled in tire Ministry as a Colleague with his Father.-

• His Rules of Preaching, and Manner of discharging Parochial Ditties. - Singular Meditations and Ejaculations, to which Ire was accustomed.

CHAPTER II.

Marriage of Cotton Mather. - Character of his Son, Samuel Mather. - Mode of instructing aneT go"erning his Children. - Sir Ed-

163


CONTENTS. vil

mUM Andros. - Increase Mat1aer. - Sir William Phips. - Cotton Mather's Agency in promoting the Delusions of Witchcraft. 195

CHAPTER III.

Sir William Pltips. - Robert Cakf. - The Influence of his Writings in exposing the Deceptions and allaying the Frenzy of Witchcraft. - Further Opinions of Cotton Matl,er on this Su.lfjed, and his Attempts to justify his Condud. . .. .... 236

CHAPTER IV.

Characteristic Extracts from his Diary. - His Vigils. - Description of the "Magnalia Christi Americana." .::.... Instances of his Enthusia.~m. - A remarkahk Courtship. - His Second Marriage. ........ 261

CHAPTER V.

GOfJerRor Dudky.- Disappointment of Cotton Mather at not being chosen President of Harvard College. - His extraordinary Letter to Governor Dlldley. - His Beliif in the special Interpositions of Providence. - Ekcted a FellOUJ of the Royal Socidy. - Re· ceifJed the Degree of Doctor of Divinity. -His Domestic AJIlictiOlls. . . 282


yiii OONTENT8.

CHAPTER VI.

PAilanthropic Undertakings. - He att_pts to Christianize tTle Negroes. - Manner in fDhich TIe employed his Time. - Habits of Industry. - Pirst Introdflctio1l of Inoculation into America. - It is boldly and firmly sustained by Cotton Mather against a violent Opposition. - Much Praise due for tlae Part TIe acted. - Early and successful Labors of Dr. Boylston in this Cause. - Warm Can-trOfJersy on tTle SulQect.. . ., . 304

CHAPTER VII.

Case of Self-delusion. - Honard College.Curious Record from tTle Diary of Cotton Matlcer describing the State of his 0tDn Mind. - His last Sickness and Deatk. - Remarks on his (Jkaracter and Writings. . 327


'iti ,d \. L )1 LI

LIFE

OF

WILLIAM PINKNEY;

BY

HENRY WHEATON, LL.D.


WILLIAM PINKNEY.

W ILLIllI PINKNEY was born at Annapolis, in the State of Maryland, on the 17th of March, 1764. His father, whom he always spoke of as a man of firm temper, and of a strong, original cast of mind, was an Englishman by birth, and took the part of the parent country during the war of the revolution. The boyish ardor or wilfulness of young Pinkney was pleased with the adoption of opposite sentiments, and he avowed, even in his early youth, his ardent attachment to the liberties of America. One of the freaks of his patriotism was to escape from the vigilance of his parents, and mount night guard with the soldiers in the fort at Annapolis. He retained to the end of his life a strong partiality to his native town, and took a pleasure in pointing out to his intimate friends, especially the young, the scenes of his childish toils and sports.

His early education was imperfect; but this was probably less owing to the narrow circumstances of his father, who spared no pains for his


4 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY.

son, than to the distracted state of the country at that period. He was initiated in classical studies by a private teacher of the name of Brathand, who left the country on account of the disturbances then commencing. The affection, which • his pupil always continued to entertain for him, was wannly reciprocated by the preceptor, who, after the lapse of several years, expressed the greatest pleasure in meeting in England a friend of Pinkney, and was eager in his inquiries about him. "One of my greatest regrets," said he, " in leaving America, was that I had to part from my promising pupil."

They, who remember him at this period of life, describe him as already animated by that haughty impatience of a superior, which characterized him at a later day, and which was, in some degree, the strength and the weakness of his character. This temper was not confined to the rivalries of study, but extended to the rougher competitions of boyhood. One anecdote of the former he used to relate of himself, as a ruse, which might be pardoned in a youth.- There was a debating club at Annapolis, of which Pinkney was a member. A question had been assigned for discussion on a certain evening, when all the polite company of the town was expected to attend; and our young orator rep~ed to a secluded spot in the vicinity, to prepare himself ip. solitude for the


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 5

coming contest. His antagonist in the debate, who was ever his chief competitor in the club, was there, however, before him; and our aspirant took the benefit of some friendly screen to overhear his preparatory declamation unobserved. "The result," said he, "was brilliant. In the evening, my antagonist's speech, which was well enough seasoned with rhetoric, was received with acclamation. But when I came to make my extemporaneous reply, which I had very earnestly prepared during the day, I was at home, as you may guess, on every point. The night was mine, and thenceforth I was King of the Club."

He had commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Goodwin, then an extensive practitioner in Baltimore; but soon found that he had mistaken his vocation, and resorted to that of the law, under the direction of Samuel Chase, afterwards one of the Judges of the Supreme Federal Court, and then at the head of the Maryland bar. Mr. Chase happened to be present at a meeting of another debating society, of which young Pinkney was a member. Struck with the talents displayed by him on this occasion, that gentlemen advised him to the study of the law, inviting him back to Annapolis, where the Superior Courts were held, and offering him the free use of his library, and whatever other aid he could afford him. The province of Maryland was distinguished among the other



colonies by a succession of learned and accomplished lawyers; and Burke has observed, in his speech on Conciliation with America, how popular and widely diffused were law studies in all of them, especially after the publication of the classical Commentaries of Blackstone, of which nearly as many copies were sold in this country as in England. With such a guide, and in such a school, his studies were of no superficial kind.

He commenced his law studies in 1783, and was called to the bar in 1786. His very first efforts seem to have given him a commanding place in the eye of the profession and the public. A knowledge of the law of real property, and of the science of special pleading, were then considered as the two great foundations of legal distinction. His attainments in these branches were accurate and profound, and he had disciplined his mind by the cultivation of that species of logic, which contributes essentially to invigorate the reasoning faculty, and enables it to detect those fallacies, which are apt to impose upon the understanding in the warmth and hurry of forensic discussion. His style in speaking was, at that period, marked by an easy flow of natural eloquence and a happy choice of language. His voice was melodious, and seemed a most winning accompaniment to his pure and effective diction. His elocution was calm and placid; "the very contrast of that strenu-


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 7

ous, vehement, and emphatic manner which he subsequently adopted.

Mr. Pinkney was elected, in 1788, a delegate from the county of Harford to the Convention of the State of Maryland, which ratified the Constitution of the United States proposed by the General Convention at Philadelphia. In the same year, he was chosen to represent the county in the House of Delegates' at Annapolis, which seat he continued to fill until the year 1792.

In 1789, he was married at Havre de Grace to Miss Ann Maria Rodgers, daughter of Mr. John Rodgers of that town, and sister to that distinguished officer Commodore Rodgers, now President of the Navy Board.

In 1790, he was elected a member of Congress. His election was contested upon the ground that he did not reside in the district for which he was -chosen, as required by the law of the State. But he was declared duly elected, and returned accordingly, by the Executive Council, upon the principle that the State legislature had no authority to require other qualifications than those enumerated in the federal constitution; and that the power of regulating the times, pla~es, and manner of holding the elections, did not include that of superinducing the additional qualification of residence within the district for which the candidate was chosen. He made on this occasion a



cogent argument in support of his own claim to be returned, but declined, on account of his professional pursuits and the state of his private 'affairs, to accept the honor which had been conferred upon him.

At the first session of the legislature of Maryland, after his election as a member of the House of Delegates in 1788, he made a speech upon the Report of a Committee appointed to consider the laws of that State prohibiting the emancipation of slaves by last, will and testament, or in any other manner during the last sickness of the owner. This speech breathes all the fire of youth, and a generous enthusiasm for the rights of human nature, although it may not perhaps be thought to give any pledge of those great powers of eloquence and reasoning, which he afterwards displayed in his mature efforts. At the subsequent session in 1789, he delivered a speech on the same subject, which, as he himself said in a letter to a friend, written at the time when his consistency was impeached for the part he took in the Missouri question, is "much better than the first speech, and for a young man is well enough."

Neither of these juvenile orations, however, grapples with the real difficulties of the subject, or tends to solve the problem, how..the entire emanci

~ pation of the African race, in a country where it is predominant in point of numbers, can be recon-


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 9

ciled with the safety of the white population; or how it is to find its equal place in a society, where inveterate prejudices, founded on indelible physical distinctions, (it is to .be apprehended) must ever retain it in the abject condition of a despised and oppressed caste. The more mature and ripened judgment of Mr. Pinkney, as a statesman, seems to have ultimately settled down into the conviction that colonization was the only practicable remedy, from which the removal of this plague-spot could even be hoped for; and we shall hereafter see, that his opinions on the subject of slavery underwent so great a modification as to incur the reproach of inconsistency on a subject, which, as a constitutional lawyer, he regarded as exclusively of local State cognizance, with which the federal authority had no right to intermeddle, not even to the extent of annexing the local prohibition of slavery as a condition to the admission of new States into the Union.

In 1792, Mr. Pinkney was elected a member of the Executive Council of Maryland, and continued in that station until November, 1795, when, being again chosen a delegate to the State legislature, he resigned his seat at the Council-board, of which he was at that time President.

During all this period he continued indefatigably devoted to his professional pursuits, and gradually rose to the head of the bar, and to a



distinguished rank in the public councils of his native State. His acuteness, dexterity, and zeal in the transaction of business; the extent and accuracy of his legal learning..; his readiness, spirit, and vigor in debate; the beauty and richness of his fluent elocution; the manliness of his figure, and the energy of his mien, united with a sonorous and flexible voice, an ani~nated and graceful delivery, are said to have been the qualities by which he attained this elevated standing in the pu~lic

estimation. But there remain no other memorials of his professional character at this period of his life, than such as have been preserved in the fleeting recollections of his cotemporaries; in the written opinions which he gave upon cases submitted to him as counsel, and which often embraced elaborate arguments upon the most difficult questions of law; and in the printed Reports of the Court of Appeals. It is, however, obviously impossible to form any adequate notion of the powers of an advocate from these papers, or from the necessarily concise sketches of the arguments of counsel contained in the books of Reports. But an argument which he made before the Court of Appeals in 1793, upon the question whether the statute of limitations is a bar to the issue of tenant in tail, may be referred to as a specimen of the accuracy and depth of his legal learning, and of


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 11

his style and peculiarly cogent manner of reasoning upon legal subjects ...

In 1796, he was selected by President Washington as one of the commissioners on the part of the United States under the seventh article of Mr. Jay's treaty with Great Britain. After consulting with his friends, he determined to accept this appointment, which had been spontaneously tendered to him. He accordingly embarked for London with his family, where he arrived in July, 1796, and was joined by Mr. Gore, the other commissioner on the part of our government. The Board, having been organized by the addition of two English civilians, Sir John Wichell and Dr. Swabey, and of Mr. Trumbull, a citizen of the United States appointed by lot, proceeded to examine the claims brought before it. Various interesting questions of public law arose, in the course of this examination, respecting contraband of war, domicile, blockade, and the practice of the prize courts, which were investigated with great learning and ability by the commissioners. Mr. Pinkney's written opinions, read at the Board, are finished models of judicial eloquence, uniting powerful and comprehensive reasoning with profound knowledge of international law, and a copious, pure, and energetic diction. The theory of the

• Harris and M'Henry's Reports, Vol. III. p. 270.


12 AMERICAN BIOGRPAHY.

conclusiveliess of the judgments of Admiralty courts, with the appropriate limitations of its application, has, I think, nowhere been more profoundly and satisfactorily discussed, than in the opinion delivered by him in the case of The Betsey, in contradiction to that of Sir John Wichell, who maintained, that compensation for the capture ought not to be allowed in that case by the commissioners, because, the sentence of condemnation pronounced in the inferior court having been affirmed by the Lords of Appeal in Prize Causes, conclusive credit ought to be given to it, inasmuch as, according to the general law of nations, it must be presumed that justice had been administered by the competent tribunal of the capturing state; and the treaty had not varied this general rule of international law, having engaged to afford relief only in cases, (either existing at the time of its signature or before the ratification,) in which, from peculiar circumstances belonging to them, adequate compensation could not then be obtained in the ordinary course of justice.

Mr. Pinkney was also engaged, during his residence abroad, in attending to the claim of the State of Maryland for a large amount of public property, invested in the stock of the Bank of England before the revolution, which had become the subject of a complicated Chancery litigation. He at last succeeded in extricating


WILLIAJI PINltNJ:Y. . 13

the stock from this situation by an arrangement, under which it was, with his consent, adjudged to the crown, with an understanding, that, after the payment of the liens upon it, the balance should be paid over to the government of Maryland.

His· residence in England was protracted far beyond his expectations or wishes, as he was anxious to return to his native country and his profession. This anxiety was feelingly expressed in his epistolary correspondence with his· private friends. In a letter, dated August, 1800, to his brother, he says; "It is time for me to think seriously of revisiting my country, and of reviving my professional habits. I shall soon begin to require ease and retirement; my constitution is weak, and my health precarious. A few years of professional labor will bring me into the sear and yellow leaf of life; and if I do not begin speedily, I shall begin too late. To commence the world at forty is indeed dreadful; but I am used to adverse fortune, and know how to struggle with

. it; my consolations cannot easily desert me,the consciousness of honorable views, and the cheering hope that Providence will yet enable me to pass the evening of my days in peace. It is not of small importance to me, that I shall go back to the bar cured of every propensity that could divert me from business, stronger than when I left it, and, I trust, somewhat wiser. In regard



to legal knowledge, I shall not be worse than if I had continued in practice; I have been a regular and industrious student for the last two years, and I believe myself to be a much better lawyer than when I arrived in England. But I shall not grow much wiser or better by a longer stay. I am become familiar with almost every thing around me, and do not look out upon life with as much intenseness of observation as heretofore; and of course, I am now rather confirming former acquisitions of knowledge than laying in new stores for the future: I begin to languish for active employment. The commission does not occupy me sufficiently, and visiting, &c., with much reading, cannot supply the deficiency. My time is always filled in one way or other, but I think I should be the better for a speech now and then. Perhaps another twelve months may give me an opportunity of making speeches till I get tired of them, and tire others too."

In another letter written in August, 1803, to his friend, Mr. Cooke, he expresses the same sentiments, with his apprehensions that what has been by some since called the "civil revolution," which brought Mr. Jefferson into power at the head of the democratic party, might sever the ties of friendship which had connected him with several leading individuals of the opposition. "I am prepared," he says, "on my return, to find thE'


WILLIA.M PINItNEY. 15

spirit of. party as high and phrensied as the most turbulent would ha ve it. I am even prepared to find a brutality in that spirit, which in this country either does not exist, or is kept down by the predominance of a better feeling. I lament with you that it is so; and I wonder that it is so; for the American people are generous, and liberal, and enlightened. Weare not, I hope, to have this inordinate zeal, this extravagant fanaticism, entailed upon us; although one might almost suppose it to be a part of our political creed, that internal tranquillity, or rather the absence of domestic discord and a rancorous contention for power, was incompatible with the health of the state and the liberty of the citizen. I profess to be temperate in my opinions, and shall put in my claim to freedom of conscience; but, when both sides are intolerant, what hopes can I have that this claim will be respected? I do not desire office; although I have no such objections to the present administration, as, on what are called, party principles, would induce me to decline public employment. It is my wish to be a mere professional laborer, to cultivate my friends and my family, and to secure an honorable independence before I am overtaken by age and infirmity. 1\ly present intention is to fix in Baltimore, where I will Batter myself I shall find some, who will not regret my choice of residence."



On his return to the United States in August, 1804, Mr. Pinkney executed his purpose of removing to Baltimore, and began to attend the federal Supreme Court at Washington. He continued to devote himself with unwearied assiduity to his professional pursuits. During his long residence in England, he had never laid aside his habits of diligent study, and had availed himself of his opportunities of intercourse with the accomplished lawyers of that country, and of frequenting the courts of Westminster Hall, to enlarge and improve his legal attainments. He ·was, by his public station, brought into immediate contact with moSt of the English civilians, and was much in the society of that accomplished and highly gifted man, Sir William Scott. He had occasion to witness the forensic efforts of Erskine, then in the meridian of his fame. He was in the constant habit of attending the debates in the two houses of Parliament, whilst Fox and Pitt still shone forth as the brightest luminaries of British eloquence. A higher standard of literary attainments was held up to his observation. He employed his leisure hours in endeavoring to supply what he now found to be the defect of his early education, by completing his knowledge of English and classical literature. He devoted peculiar attention to the· subject of Latin prosody and English elocution; aiming, above all, to acquire a


WILLIAM PINItNEY. 11

critical knowledge of the living English tongue, its pronunciation, its tenns and significations, its synonymes, and, in short, its whole structure and vocabulary. By these means, he added to his natural eloquence and fluency a copiousness and variety of diction, which graced even his colloquial intercourse, and imparted new strength and beauty to his forensic style.

In April, 1806, he was again called into the public service of his country abroad by circumstances, which were even then deemed to be of serious concern, but which ultimately involved our republic in that war with Great Britain, which has given a new coloring and character to our subsequent political existence.

In the course of the ensuing year after his return from England, several cases of the capture of our merchant vessels, engaged in carrying the produce of the colonies of the enemies of Great Britain to Europe, had occurred, which threatened the total destruction of that branch of our neutral carrying trade. These seizures were grounded upon a revival by the British government of a doctrine, ~hich had acquired the denomination of "the Rule of the War of 1756," from the circumstance of its having been first applied by the Prize Court during that war. The rule was suffered to lie donnant during the war of our revolution, probably from the fear of exciting the

VOL. VI. 2


18 AMERICA.N BIOGRA.PHY.

hostility of the maritime powers who subsequently· fonned the league of anned neutrality. It was revived during the first war of the French revolution in 1793, and extended to the entiIe prohibition of all neutral traffic with the colonies and upon the coasts of the enemy. But, as indemnity was given by the board of commissioners under Mr. Jay's treaty for captures made upon this pretext, and as it had been expressly admitted in Lord Hawksbury's letter to Mr. King of April 11th, 1801, (enclosing Sir John Nicholl's official report as Advocate-General,) that the coloni&:J trade might be carried on by neutrals circuitously, and that landing the cargo in a neutral port broke the continuity of voyage so as to legalize the trade thus carried on, there was the more reason for surprise and complaint on the part of the government and people of this country at this sudden and unexpected attack upon their accustomed trade.

The revival and extended application of "the Rule of 1756" gave rise to numerous polemic publications on both sides of the Atlantic; in which the respective pretensions of England and America were elaborately discussed. Among these was an ingenious pamphlet entitled " War in Disguise, or the Frauds of Neutral Flags," written by Mr. Stephen, an English barrister, well known for his enthusiastic zeal in the cause of the abolition of


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 19

West India slavery, and who was supposed to enjoy the confidence of the ministry then in power. This production was examined, and its reasonings combated, by a very able writer in the , Edinburgh Review.· It was also answered by Gouverneur Morris, in a pamphlet characteristic of that statesman's peculiar genius and political prejudices; and the whole subject was afterwards thoroughly discussed by Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, in an elaborate work entitled " An Examination of the British Doctrine, which subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade not open in Time of Peace."

Different memorials were presented from the various commercial cities of the Union, remonstrating against this dangerous pretension, and pledging the support of the trading interests to such measures, as the government might think fit to adopt, to resist it, as incompatible with the just rights and independence of the country. Among these, was an argumentative and eloquent Memo.. rial from the merchants of Baltimore, drawn up by Mr. Pinkney, who had found occasion to study this question when a member of the board of commissioners under the British treaty of 1794.

In this paper he conclusively shows, by an elaborate historical deduction, accompanied with a searching analysis of judicial precedents, that the

• Vol. VIIL No. 15, for April, 1806 •.


20 AIIUCRICAN BIOGRAPHY.

doctrine in. question was never heard of until the war of 1756; that it was then rested upon the peculiar ground of adoption 'or naturalization, by which neutral vessels, engaged in the colony trade of France, were considered by the British courts of Admiralty as having forfeited their original national character, by being incorporated into the enemy's navigation with all its privileges, just as an individual neutral merchant is considered as losing the immunities of his native character by permanent residence in the belligerent country. He also proves, that during the war of the American revolution, the doctrine was expressly disavowed by the British prize tribunals, and that this solemn renunciation was powerfully confirmed by the acquiescence of Great Britain, during the first and most important and active period of the war which was terminated by the lleace of Amiens, in the free and unlimited prosecution by neutrals of the whole colony trade of France; and, when she did; at last, interrupt it by orders of council, secretly issued and suddenly executed, she made ample amends for this breach of good faith and public law, into which she had been inconsiderately betrayed.

The leading part taken in this interesting discussion by Mr. PiBkney, and the thorough knowledge of the subject shown in this paper, together with the valuable experience he had acquired


WILLIAM PllfltRJ:T. su during his former residence in England, induced President Jefferson to invite him to assist in the negotiation already commenced by Mr. Monroe, then our resident envoy in London, on this and the other important points of difference between the two countries. With this view, he was appointed in April, 1806, jointly with Mr. Monroe as minister plenipotentiary to treat with the British government on these subjects. He, therefore, once more abandoned his professional pursuits, and embarked in the month of May, wfth his family, for England.

The moment seemed to be propitious for a satisfactory adjustment of the complicated difficulties which had arisen between the two countries. Mr. F'ox, after having been banished from the royal presence and confidence for more than twenty years, subsequent to the failure of his famous India hill, was once more admitted to a share of power in conjunction with that portion of Mr. Pitt's party who continued to adhere to Lord Grenville after the death of their great leader. 1\Ir. Fox was appointed to the Foreign Office, and one of his first objects was an endeav~ ~r to realize his· own views of the impolicy of the war with France, which he had so long and so strenuously opposed, by opening a negotiation fOr peace. But this effort at negotiation, wedged in between the battle of Austerlitz and that of



Jena, the fonner of which broke the heart of Pitt, and the latter laid the European continent prostrate at the feet of Napoleon, came too late to stop the resistless tide of conquest which threatened to overwhelm the world.

This awful state of things rendered it the more incumbent on the new ministry to prevent the weight of America, with ber vast maritime resources, from being thrown into the scale of France, by doing us justice upon those subjects of complaint which had occasioned so much irritation, the lawless practice of impressing our sea-faring citizens from on board our own vessels on the high seas, the habitual violation of our neutral jurisdiction on the ,coasts and within the bays, ports, and harbors of the Union, and the multiplied restraints upon our commerce by novel interpretations of public law.

The Lords Holland and Auckland were named by the government to treat on these points, and for a revision of the commercial articles of. Mr. Jay's treaty with the American envoys. The writer of this biographical sketch has been assured by Mr. Monroe, that the British commission, during the whole course of this difficult and delicate negotiation, showed the most candid and concilia~ tory disposition, at the same time that they were, of course, duly attentive to the interests of their own. country. That amiable, enlightened, anel


WILLi LNEY.

accomplished nobleman, Lord Holland, it is well known to all who have attended to his public career, or enjoyed the advantage of personal intercourse with him, then cherished and still cherishes for the United States and its free institut.ions those feelinii" which he imbib03d fl"om his illustrioHs we may be a\lov,"ed firmed by his own Auckland seemed

Fox, and whieh have been c<)n~

judgment. Lord by a conciliatosii

deportment, to remove any inJunous impressions which might have been taken up against him during the war of our revolution, but without adverting, on any occasion, to the transactions of those times.

The British were, however, in hands of their whose orders implicitly obeyed \'7nll known that enbinet itself was a coalition of

and discord;m£ all its proceedinp; being looked upon with extreme jealousy by the opposition of the day. It fell to pieces not long after the death of Mr. Fox, who soon followed his illustrious rival to the grave; and Mr. Canning came into the Foreign Office, deeply imbued with ell those prejudicns nnEy thing Americ;m, mhich he had imhib;;;1 "nhool of that mb~

so long servntrt for liberalitt

M .. A.MERICAN BIOGRAPHY.

as a statesman long afterwards; towards America, at least, he was, at this period, neither gene~ nor just.

Previous to this breaking up of the coalition ministry, (which at last took place upon the obstinate refusal of the king to consent to any measure of Catholic emancipation, however limited, anq. his requiring a positive pledge from his ministers that they would never mention the subject to him again,) a treaty had been signed on the 31st of December, 1806, by the American, with the British negotiators, which the former, however, declared to be not conformable to their instructions, and concluded merely sub spe rati; whilst the latter accompanied its signature with a declaration of the right of the British government to retaliate upon neutral nations the decree of blockade issued by Napoleon at Berlin on the 21st of November.

The ministry, no longer guided by the pacific spirit of Fox, and as if they were determined to

furnish their successors with a precedent for annihilating neutral commerce, (as they had furnished to Napoleon a pretext for his Berlin decree by their previous blockade, of May, 1806, of the coasts from the Elba to Brest,) immediately followed this declaration with the orders in council of the 7th of January, 1807, establi:lhing a limited blockade of the whole coast of Europe in pas-


WILLIAM PINItNEY. 26

session of France and her allies, so as to prevent neutrals from trading from one port to another. Then came the attack on the frigate Chesapeake, and President Jefferson sent back the proposed treaty for revision, without submitting it to the Senate.

Mr. Monroe now returned to the United States, leaving Mr. Pinkney as sole minister in England. The prospect of reconciliation with that country, on terms consistent with the interests and honor of the republic, dark as it was before, was now clouded with the additional measure of the orders in council of November, 1807, prohibiting all neutral trade with. the ports of France and her allies, or of any other country at war with Great Britain, and with all other European ports from which the British Bag was excluded, unless such trade should be carried OIl through her ports, under her licenses,· and paying dutieS to her exchequer.

The remnant of neutral commerce spared by this edict was effectually destroyed by the retaliatory decree soon afterwards fulminated at Milan by Napoleon, who seized gladly upon this pretext to complete his system of blockade and confiscation, by which he hoped effectually to cut off the commercial and financial resources of England. • The two great belligerent powers thus mutually rivalled each other in the work of destroying the



commerce of the only, remaining neutral state their indiscriminate violence had left out of the circle of hos~lity. In vain were the justice and policy of the British orders in council of November arraigned in Parliament by Lord Erskine and other members of the late ministry, who had themselves furnished the precedent and the pattern of that measure in the orders issued in the prcceding January on the same pretext of retaliating the Berlin decree. In vain was the wanton attack on Copenhagen assailed by them as subversive of the sacred principles of morality, of public law, and of the soundest maxims of national policy. All other considerations were merged in the apparent necessity of resisting the portentous power of the French Emperor, who, after the victory of Friedland and the peace of Tilsit, wielded the entire resources of the European continent, and directed them to the avowed purpose of subverting the British empire.

The solicitude of Mr. Pinkney to accomplish the intentions of his government in seeking to remove by pacific means those obstacles, which had been thrown in the way of neutral commerce by these violent measures, and his anxiety to vindicate the honor and rights of his country, are' apparent, not only from his official correspondence, but from his voluminous private letters' to Mr.


WILLI .... PINltNEY.

Madison, to transcribe which would enlarge the size of this biography beyond its prescribed limits.

But the years 1808, 1809, and 1810, passed away without any adequate return fop his zealous and persevering coOperation with the government at home, in endeavoring to avoid that alternative which was at last forced upon us by the obstinate perseverance of the British ministry in their offensive measures. The arrangement concluded at Washington, in April, 1809, for the repeal of the orders in council, upon condition that our nonintercourse should be continued against France until she repealed her decrees, was disavowed by tbe British government. Fresh cause of irritation was created by the offensive conduct of Mr. Jackson, sent to explain that disavowal; the attack on the frigate Chesapeake still remained unexpiated; the impressment of our seamen and the capture of' our vessels were still continued.

His conciliatory endeavors to remove these causes of complaint proved abortive; whilst he was subjected to severe censure at home for the alleged tameness of his remonstrances, which were in exact conformity to the instructions he had received from our government, whose excessive anxiety for peace dictated only the most amicable language in its intercourse with England. In the mean time, the money he had saved from his professional earnings had been absorbed in the


28 AMEJlICAN BIOGJlAPHY.

expenses incident to the education of his children in a foreign country, and to maintaining that style of living, which is not only absolutely necessary in a public minister, in order to enable him to reciprocate the civilities of others which he in vain seeks to avoid, but even to perform the duties of his station by keeping up social intercotirse with 11is diplomatic colleagues, -and with the. members of the government to which he is accredited.

In his letters to his private friends, the effects of these cares upon his health and spirits are expressed with much sensibility, mingled with the strongest feelings of attachment to the scenes and companions of his youth. In a private letter to President Madison, dated in November, 1810, he requests his immediate recall, upon the ground that his salary was utterly inadequate to defray his unavoidable expenses. He adds; "There are other considerations, however, which ought, perhaps, to have produced the same effect at even an earlier period, and would have produced it, if I had followed my own inclinations rather than a sense of duty to you and to the people. Some of these considerations respect myself individually, and need not be named; for they are nothing in comparison with those which look to my family. Its claims to the benefit of my professional exertions have been too long neglected. Age is stealing fast upon me; and I shall soon have lost


WILLIAM PINltNEY. 29

the power of retrieving the time which has been wasted in endeavors (fruitless it would seem) to

deserve well of my ~ountry. Every day will, as it passes, render it more difficult to resume the habits which I have twice improvidently abandoned. At present, I feel no want of cheerful resolution to seek them again as old friends, whom I ought never to have quitted, and no want of confidence that they will not disown me. How long that resolution, if not acted upon, may last, or that confidence may stand up in the decline of life, I cannot know, ~nd will not try. I trust it is not necessary for me to say how much your kindness, and that of your predecessor, has contributed to subdue the anxieties of my situation, and to make me forget that I ought to leave a post, at once so perilous and costly, to richer and to abler hands. Those who know me will believe, that my heart is deeply sensible of that kindness, and that my memory will preserve a faithful record of it while it can preserve a trace of any thing."

Mr. Pinkney still continued to press upon the ministry, of which Marquis Wellesley was the head, the complaints of this country, until, finding that no attention was likely to be paid to his remonstrances, he took leave of the British court in February, 1811, soon afterwards embarked in the frigate Essex for the United States, and arrived at Annapolis in the month of June.



On his return, he immediately resumed the labors of his profession with his accustomed alacrity and ardor. In December, 1811, he was appointed Attorney-General of th~ United States by President Madison. At the term of the ~upreme Court following his appointment, came on for hearing before that tribunal a cause of remarkable interest, as involving an important question of public law, our international relations with foreign powers, and the sovereign rights of a foreign nation brought in conflict with the claim of one of our own citizens.

This was the case of the ship Exchange, originally a merchant vessel belonging to an American citizen, which had been seized and confiscated by Napoleon, under his decree issued at Rambouillet upon the pretext of retaliating our Non-Intercourse act against France, armed and commissioned in his service, and sent to carry despatches ~ the East Indies. In the course of its voyage, the vessel was compelled, by stress of weather, to put into the port of Philadelphia, our waters being then open to the ships of war of all the belligerent powers. It was there proceeded against by the original American owners, who reclaimed their property in the ordinary course of justice, and the cause was finally brought, by appeal, before the Supreme Court; the French minister at, Washington having insisted, in his correspondence with


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 31

our government, that the justice and legality of the original seizure under the Rambouillet decree was a question of state to be settled by diplomatic negotiation between the French and American governments; and that it could not be determined by the ordinary tribunals of justice, especially as the vessel, sailing under the commission of his . sovereign, had entered a port of the Union under the general permission to the public armed ships of foreign nations.

The same principle of exemption from ordinary judicial cognizance, for the vessel thus entering our waters, was also maintained by Mr. Pinkney, as Attorney-General, with an extent of learning, and a force of argument and eloquence, which raised him at once in the public estimation, to the head oIthe American bar. He reasoned to show, that, where wrongs are inflicted by one nation upon another in such tempestuous and lawless times, they could not be redressed by judicature in the exercise of its ordinary powers; that, where the private property of the citizen had been ever so unjustly confiscated in the competent tribunals of a foreign state, a regular condemnation closes the judicial eye upon the enormity of the original seizure; and still Jess coul!! the courts of justice interfere where the sovereign rights of a foreign prince had intervened, whose flag and commission must be respected by those courts until a jurisdic-



tion over his vessels had been expressly conferred upon them by the supreme legislative power of their own government.-

He compared the case then in judgment to the analogous exemptions, laid down by the classical text writers on international law, from the local jurisdiction of the country, of the person of the sovereign, of his envoys, or his fleets and armies, coming within the territorial limits of another state, by its permission, expressed or implied. He insisted upon the equality of sovereigns, and that one sovereign could not submit his rights to the decision of another, or of his courts of justice; but that the mutually conflicting claims of independent states must be adjusted by diplomatic negotiations or reprisals and war; that no reprisals had been authorized by our own government in the present instance; and that the general provisions of the laws of Congress, descriptive of the ordinary jurisdiction of the national tribunals to redress private wrongs, ought not to be so interpreted as to give them cognizance of a case, in which the sovereign power of the nation had, by implication, consented to wave its territorial jurisdiction.

These topics of argument he amplified and illustrated by a variety of considerations, drawn from the impotency of the judicial power to enforce its decisions in such cases; from the exclu-


W'ILLIAIII PIN ltNEY. 33

sive competence of the supreme sovereign power of the nation adequately to avenge wrongs committed by a foreign sovereign, and to determine when it shall assert, and when it 'may prudently compromise, its extreme rights j and from the very nature of the questions growing out of such transactions, as being rather questions of state policy than of jurisprudence, of diplomatic than of f~ rensic discussion, and to be determined by all those delicate and complicated motives which guide the statesman, rather than by those inflexible rules which must be observed by those whl? pre .. side in the judgment-seat. These topics were made the grounds of the masterly judgment p~ nounced by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in this celebrated case, with the unanimous concurrence of the bench j - Judge Washington uniting with the rest of his brethren in reversing his own sentence pronounced in the Circuit Court, with that perfect.candor and willing sacrifice of selfish vanity to the convictions of his better-instructed mind, which adorned the character of that upright magistrate, and shed a new lustre upon the great name he bore.

The organization of the judicial policy is one of the most curious and nicely adapted parts of our admirable scheme of federative government. The highest appellate tribunal is invested with an imposing combination of authorities. Besides its

VOL. VI. 3



extensive powers as an ordinary court of justice, it administers the law of nations to our own citizens and to foreigners; and determines, in the last resort, every question capable of a judicial determination, arising under our municipal constitution, -including controversies between the members of the Union, and those growing out of conflicts between the fundamental law and ordinary acts of legislation. It is before "this more than Amphictyonic council" that the American lawyer is called to plead, not merely for the private rights of his fellow-citizens, but for their constitutional privileges, and to discuss the conflicting pretensions of State and Federal sovereignties.

It was a rash assertion of an illustrious writer, that there are no discoveries to be made in moral science and in the principles of government. To say nothing of other improvements which the present age has witnessed, mankind is indebted to . America for the di'lCovery and practicl;ll application of a scheme of federative representative government, which, if it be not adapted to all climes, and to every condition of the many-peopled globe, has, at least so far, "worked well," and avoided the defects of all preceding confederacies. The extensive and important function assigned to the judicial power in this polity, combined with the peculiar circumstances of our social condition, has


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 35

inevitably assigned to the legal profession a large share of public influence.

Generally speaking, the practice of the bar in this Country is not confined to particular courts. Our lawyers not being restricted to any particular department of the profession, their technical learning is usually of a more liberal and expansive cast than in the country whence we derived our legal institutions. Their professional habits and technical studies do not unfit them, in any degree, for the performance of the higher and more important functions of statesmen and legislators. There can be no doubt, that, in England, greater skill and nicety of execution are acquired, by the minute subdivision of labor, produced by the state of the profession and the circumstances of society. Hence, we find there more perfect masters of the science of equity, of special pleading, conveyancing, or of the civil and canon laws as they are administered in the admiralty and consistorial courts.

But the peculiar circumstances and social condition of this young country have aroused the active faculties of the people, and imparted a greater flexibility and variety to the talents of its public men; whilst they have enabled our more eminent lawyers, when called into the public service, to perform all the offices of peace and war with as much ability and success as in those coun-


36 AMERICAN BIOGRPAHY.

tries where youth are prepared for the duties of public life by a peculiar system of education, exclusively adapted for that purpose. They have stored their minds with miscellaneous knowledge; and, when removed from the bar into the cabinet or the senate, have generally been found to sustain the reputation they had acquired in a more limited walk.

The infancy of the country, the immature state of society, and the freedom of its political institutions, have all contributed to this result. Society is not yet, if indeed it ever will be, broken into those marked distinctions and gradations of rank and occupation, demanding a correspondent separation of mere professional employments, from those connected with the business of the state; whilst, at the same time, the bar, as in the ancient republics, is the Jlrincipal avenue to public honors and employments. These peculiar circumstances, combined with the singular nature of the judicature exercised by the Supreme Court in constitutional cases, have advanced the science of jurisprudence in the United States far beyond the general condition of our literature, and raised the legal profession to a higher rank than it enjoys in. any other country.

Mr. Pinkney cooperated, as an advocate, in laying the foundations of the system of prize-law, built up by the Supreme Court during the late


WILLIAM PINltNEY. 37

war with Great Britain. His extensive leaming and peculiar experience in this science contributed essentially to enlighten the judgments of that tribunal on a branch of jurisprudence in which we had few national precedents, and where the elementary writers on public law are extremely deficient in practical details and a particular application of general principles. Among other cases of capture brought for adjudication before that tribunal, was the celebrated case of the Ncreide, in which arose the novel question of international law, whether a neutral could lawfully lade his goods on board an armed enemy's vessel.

In the argument of this cause, his powers were severely tasked by rivalry, not only with his gifted competitor, Mr. Emmett, but with the counsel associated with him for the captors, :Mr. Dallas, who, he said, had "dealt with this great cause in a way so masterly, and had presented it before the Court with such a provoking fulness of illustration, that his unlucky colleague could scarcely set his foot upon a single spot of it without trespassing upon some one of those arguments, which, with

. an admirable profusion, I had almost said, a prodigality of leaming, he has spread over the whole subject. Time, however, which changes all things, and man more than any thing, no longer permits me to speak upon the impulse of ambition. It has left ine only that of duty; better, perhaps,


38 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY.'

than the feverish impulse which it has supplanted; sufficient, ~ I hope, to urge me, upon this and every other occasion, to maintain the cause of truth, by such exertions as may become a servant of the law in a forum like this. I shall be content, therefore, to travel after my learned friend over a part of the track which he has at once smoothed and illuminated, happy, rather than displeased, that he has facilitated and justified the celerity with which I mean to traverse it; more happy still, if I shall be able, as I pass along, to relieve the fatigue of your Honors, the benevolent companions of my journey, by imparting something of freshness and novelty to the prospect around us.

"To this course I am also reconciled by a pretty confident opinion, the result of general study, as well as of particular meditation, that the discussion in which we are engaged has no claim to that air of intricacy which it has assumed; that, on the contrary, it turns upon a few very plain and familiar principles, which, if kept steadily in view, will guide us in safety, through the worse than Cretan labyrinth of topics and authorities, that seem to embarrass it, to such a conclusion as it may be fit for this Court to sanction by its judgment. " "I shall, in the outset, dismiss from the cause whatever has been rather insinuated with a prudent delicacy, than openly and directly pressed by


WI ihNEY.

my able opponent, with reference to the personal situation of the claimant, and of those with whom he is united in blood and interest. I am willing to admit that a Christian judicature may dare to feel for a desolate foreigner who stands before it, not

life and death for the fortunes himself and his ready to concede,

friendless stranger human justice,

;may sometimes a portion of sternness, to take him by the hand, and, exchanging her character for that of mercy, to raise him up from an abyss of doubt and fear to a pinnacle of hope and joy. In such circumstances, a temperate and guarded sympathy may not unfre'duently be virtue~

" But this is thu Uhon earth in whieh can be necesseru if it be yieldrd as a 1lIQtive of ,::'ases to be virtu::,

eed becomes worse than weah ~ ness. What may be the real value of Mr. Pinto's claim to our sympathy, it is impossible for us to be certain that we know; but thus much we are sure we know, that, whatever may be its vallie in fact, in the balance of the law it is lighter than a hz:ather shaken frum ming, lighter thull ihe· down that Bo::J:: l:,ee~e of summ':J.

throw into thu :,:,:ale the ponderou:, ,;Iaim of WAR; a concernmeut,

40 AMERICA.N BIOGRAPHY.

to us only, but to the world; a claim connected with the maritime strength of this maritime state, with public honor and individual enterprise, with all those passions and motives, which can be made subservient to national success and glory in the hour of national trial and danger. I throw into the same scale the venerable code of universal law, before which it is the duty of this Court, high as it is in dignity, and great as are its titles to reverence, to bow down with submission. I throw into the same scale a solemn treaty, binding upon the claimant and upon you. In a word, I throw into that scale the rights of belligerent America, and, as embodied with them, the rights of those captors, by whose efforts and at whose cost the naval exertions of the government have been seconded, until our once despised and drooping flag has been made to wave in triumph where neither France nor Spain could venture to show a prow.

" You may call these rights by what name you please. You may call them iron rights; I care not; it is enough for me, that they are RIGHTS.

It is more than enough for me, that they come before you encircled and adorned by the laurels, which we have tom &om the brow of the naval genius of England; that they come before you recommended, and endeared, and consecrated by a thousand recollections which it would be base ..


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 41

ness and folly not to cherish, and that they are mingled in fancy and in fact with all the elements of o~r future greatness."

In the course of his argument, Mr. Pinkney insisted that the claimant's property ought to be condemned as prize of war upon the three following grounds;

1. That the treaty of 1795, between the United States and Spain, contained a positive stipulation adopting the maxim of the northern confederacy, that free ships shall make free goods; and although it did not expressly mention the converse proposition, that enemy ships shfmld make enemy goods, yet it did not negative that proposition; and as the two maxims had always been associated together in the practice of nations, the one was to

be considered as implying the other • . 2. That, by the Spanish prize-code, neutral

property found on board of enemy's vessels was liable to capture and condemnation j and that, this being the law of Spain, applied by her when belligerent, to us and to all other nations wh~n neutral, by the principle of reciprocity the same rule was to be applied to the property of her subject, which Mr. Pinto must be taken to be, the United States government not having at that time acknowledged the independence of the Spanish American colonies.

3. He contended, that the claim of Mr. Pinto


42 AMERICAN BIOGRA.PHY.

ought to be rejected on account of his unneutral conduct, in hiring and putting his goods on board of an anned v~ssel, which sailed under convoy, and actually resisted search.

After fully discussing the first two points, he proceeded;

"I come now to the third and last question, upon which, if I should be found to speak with more confidence than may be thought to become me, I stand upon this apology, that I have never been able to persuade myself that it was any question at all. I have consulted upon it the reputed oracles of universal law, with a wish disrespectful to their high vocation, that they would mislead me into doubt. But - pia aunt, nullumqlle nefas oracula suadent. I have listened to the counsel for the claimant, with a hope produced by his reputation for abilities and learning, that his argument would shake from me the sturdy conviction which held me in its grasp, and would substitute for it that mild and convenient skepticism that excites without oppressing the mind, and summons an advocate to the best exertion of his faculties, without taking from him the prospect of success, and the assurance. that his cause deserves it. I have listened, I say, and am as great an infidel as ever. •

"My learned colleague, in his discourse upon this branch of the subject, relied in some degree


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 43

upon circumstances, supposed by him to be in evidence, but by our opponents believed to be merely assumed. I will not rely upon any circumstances but such as are admitted by us all. I take the broad and general ground, which does not require the aid of such special considerations as might be borrowed &om the contested facts.

" I shall consider the case as simply that of a neutral, who attempts to carry on his trade from a belligerent port, not only under belligerent convoy, but in a belligerent vessel of foree, with full knowledge that she has capacity to resist the commissioned vessels, and (if they lie in her way) to attack and subdue the defenceless merchant-ships of the other belligerent, and with the further knowledge, that her commander, over whom in this respect he has no control, has inclination and authority, and is bound by duty so to resist, and is inclined and authorized so to attack and subdue. I shall discuss it as the case of a neutral, who advisedly puts in motion, and connects his commerce and himself with a force thus qualified and conducted; who voluntarily identifies his commerce and himself with a hostile spirit, and authority, and duty, thus known to and uncontrollable by him; who steadily adheres to this anomalous fellowship, this unhallowed league between neutrality and war, - until, in an evil hour,



it falls before the superior force of an American cruiser, when, for the first time, he insists upon dissolving the connexion, and demands to be regarded as an. unsophisticated neutral, whom it would be barbarous to censure, and monstrous to visit with penalty. 'Fhe gentlemen tell us that a neutral may do all this! I hold that he may not, and if he may, that he is a 'chartered libertine,' that he is legibus Bolutis, and may do any thing •

. " The boundaries, which separate war from neutrality, are sometimes more faint and obscure than could be desired; but there never were any boundaries between them, or they must all have perished, if neutrality can, as this new and most licentious creed declares, surround itself upon the ocean with as much of hostile equipment as it can afford to purchase, if it can set forth upon the great common of the world, under the tutelary auspices and armed with the power of one belligerent bidding defiance to, and entering the lists 9f battle with the other, and at the same moment assume the aspect and robe of peace, and challenge all the immunities which belong only to submission.

"My learned friends must bear with me if I say, that there is in this idea such an appearance of revolting incongruity, that it is difficult to restrain the understanding from rejecting it without


WILLIA. PINJ[NEY. 45

inquiry, by a sort of intellectual instinct. It is, I admit, of a romantic and marvellous cast, and may, on that account, find favor with those who delight in paradox; but I am utterly at a loss to conjecture, how a well-regulated and disciplined judgment, for which the gentlemen on the other side are eminently distinguished, can receive it otherwise than as the mere figment of the brain of some ingenious artificer of wonders. The idea is formed by a union of the most repulsive ingredients. It exists by an unexampled reconciliation of· mortal antipathies. It exhibits such a rare diScordia rerum, such a stupendous society of jarring elements, or (to use an expression of Tacitus) of

,reB inBociabiles, that it throws into the shade the wildest fictions of poetry. I entreat your Honors to endeavor a personification of this motley notion, and to forgive me for presuming to intimate, that if, after you have achieved it, you pronounce the notion to be correct, you will have gone a great way to prepare us, by the authority of your opinion, to receive, as credible history, the worst parts of the mythology of the Pagan world. The Centaur and the Proteus of antiquity will be fabulous no longer.

"The prosopopreia, to which I invite you, is scarce} y, indeed, within the power of fancy, even in her most riotous and capricious mood, when she is best able and most disposed to force incompati-



bilities into fleeting and shadowy combination; but, if you can accomplish it, will give you something like the kid and the lion, the lamb and the tiger portentously incorporated, with ferocity and meekness coexistent in the result, and equal as motives of action. It will give you a modem Amazon, more strangely constituted than those with whom ancient fable peopled the borders of the Thermidon, - her voice compounded of the tremendous shout of the ,Minerva of Homer, and the gentle accents of an Arcadian shepherdess,with all the faculties and inclinations of turbulent and masculine War, and all the retiring modesty of virgin Peace. We shall have, in one personage, the pkaretrata Camilla of the lEneid, and the Peneian maid of the Metamorphosis. We shall have Neutrality, soft and gentle, and defenceless in herself, yet clad in the panoply of her warlike neighbors, - with the frown of defiance upon her brow, and the smile of conciliation upon her lip,with the spear of Achilles in one hand and a lying protestation of innocence and helplessness unfolded in the other. Nay, if I may be allowed so bold a figure in a mere legal disCussion, we shall have the branch of olive entwined around the bolt of Jove, and Neutrality in the act of hurling the latter under the deceitful cover of the former.

" I must take the liberty to aSsert, that, if this be law, it is not that sort of law of which Hooker


WILLIAJI PINKNEY. 4'7

speaks, when, with the splendid magnificence of Eastern metaphor, he says, that 'her seat is the bosom of God, and her voice the harmony of the world.' Such a chimera can never be fashioned into a judicial rule fit to be tolerated or calculated to endure. You may, I know, erect it into a rule, and I shall, in common with others, do my best to respect it; but, until you do so, I am free to say, that in my humble judgment, it must rise upon the ruins of many a principle of peculiar sanctity and venerable antiquity, which it will be your wisdom to preserve and perpetuate."

After having thus spoken, as he said, in metaphors, which, if they would not bear the test of rigorous criticism, he trusted would at least be pardoned, upon the ground that they served to mark out and illustrate his more particular argument, Mr. Pinkney proceeded to consider the effect, which such a license to neutrals as that supposed might produce upon the unarmed trade of the opposite belligerent, and to establish its unlawfulness, both on general principles, and the particular analogies of judicial precedents. But it would be difficult to analyze, and impossible to abridge, this argument, which affords an adequate specimen of his peculiar powers as a forensic debater; and we must, therefore, content ourselves with subjoining the peroration to this admirable speech.



"The little strength with which I set out is at last exhausted, and I must hasten to a conclusion. I commit to you, therefore, without farther discussion, the cause of my clients, identified with the rights of the American people, and with those wholesome' rules which give to public law simplicity and system, and tend to the quiet of the world.

"We are now, thank God, once more at peace. Our belligerent rights may therefore sleep for a season. May their repose be long and profound. But the time must arrive, when the interests and honor of this great nation will command them to awake, and, when it does arrive, I feel undoubting confidence, that they will rise from their slumber in the fulness of their strength and majesty, unenfeebled and unimpaired by the judgment of this high· Court.

"The skill and valor of our infant navy, which has illumined every sea, and dazzled the master states of Europe by the splendor of its triumphs, have given us a pledge, which, I trust, will be dear to every American heart, and influence the future course of our policy, that the ocean is destined to acknowledge the future dominion of the west. I am not likely to live to see it, and, therefore, the more do I seize upon the enjoyment presented by the glorious anticipation. That this dominion, when God shall suffer us to wrest it


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 49

from those who have abused it, will be exercised with such justice and moderation ·as will put to shame the maritime tyranny of recent times, and fix upon. our power the affections of mankind, it is the duty of us all to hope; but it is equally our duty to hope, that we shall not be so inordinately just to others as to be unjust to ourselves." .

It is well known that Mr. Pinkney's argument was overruled by the Court, and the sentence of condemnation in the inferior tribunal reversed by a majority of the judges. It may be mentioned, however, as a remarkable example of the uncertainty of the so-called law of nations, as administered by belligerent prize-courts, that it should have been determined about the same time by Sir William Scott, that British captors were entitled to salvage for the recapture of neutral (Portuguese) property on board an armed British vessel, upon the ground, that the goods would have been justly liable to condemnation in our courts of admiralty.

Mr. Pinkney took a very decided and zealous part in the struggle between the rival political parties among his fellow-citizens, to which the war had given fresh activity. His direct agency in the negotiations by which our government sought to avoid this lamentable alternative, enabled him to bear conclusive testimony to its long-continued forbearance, and to the stem necessity, which at

VOL. VI. 4



last compelled it to resort to anns, in order to vindicate our national honor, rights, and interests. Both his pen and his tongue were diligently employed, in moments of leisure snatched from professional occupations, in the polemic warfare to which the struggle gave rise. He was frequently called upon to address the people at public meetings on the topics connected with it. He wrote numerous newspaper articles on the same subject, and embodied his views of it in a pamphlet addressed to the people of Maryland under the signature of Publius, which affords a very fair specimen of his style as a political co~troversialist. Nor did he shrink from the duty of contributing his share to the duty of defending the state against invasion, a duty from which no man in this country is exempt, and which he performed with characteristic alacrity.

Soon after the declaration of war, he was chosen to the command of a volunteer corps, raised in Baltimore for local defence, and attached to the third brigade of Maryland militia. At the time of the enemy's attack on the city of Washington, he marched with his corps to Bladensburg, and conducted with great personal gallantry in the inglorious action at that place, where he was severely wounded. Some time after the peace, having been elected a representative in Congress from


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 51

the city of Baltimore, he resigned his military command.

Soon after his election to Congress, a question of constitutional law, of the greatest public interest, arose in that body, which was discussed with much zeal and talent in both Houses. A commercial convention between the United States and Great Britain had been concluded at London in July, 1815, and subsequently ratified by the President and Senate, by which it was stipulated that the discriminating duties on British vessels and their cargoes, then subsisting under certain acts of Congress, should be abolished in return for a reciprocal stipulation on the part of the British government.

On this occasion, a bill was brought into the House of Representatives to carry the convention into effect, specifically enacting the provisions contained in the treaty itself. This bill was opposed by Mr. Pinkney, in an able and eloquent speech, exhausting the whole subject of discussion. He contended, with great force of reasoning, that both under the international code and our own municipal constitution, the treaty- became the supreme law of the land, the instant it was ratified by the President and Senate on one side, and his Britannic Majesty on the other; that it had, proprio 'lJigore, the effect of repealing all the laws of Congress which stood in the way of its stipulations; and required no confinnation by that


52 AMERI CAN BIOGRAPHY.

body to give it complete validity, as a law binding upon every department of the government and upon the whole nation.

The bill passed the House of Representatives, but was rejected in the Senate; that body having passed a mere declaratory bill, enacting that so much of any act of Congress as was contrary to the stipulations of the convention, should be deemed and taken to be of no force or e1l'ect. Some further proceedings took place, and the disagreeing votes of the two Houses were at last reconciled by a committee of conference, at whose recommendation the declaratory bill was finally passed by the House of Representatives, and became a law by the approbation of President Monroe. A similar question had arisen during the administration of President Washington, as to the legislative provisions necessary to carry into e1l'ect the treaty of 1794 with England.

In the debate on this subject, the same doctrine was insisted on by the administration party as that now maintained by Mr. Pinkney; - that, the constitution having provided, that all treaties made under the authority of the United States should be the supreme law of the land; every treaty being, under the law of nations, an obligatory contract between the nations parties to it; and the treaty in question having been ratified by the President, with the advice and consent of the


WILLIAM PINKNET.

Senate, a refusal of the House of Representatives to provide the necessary means for carrying it into effect, would, consequently, be a violation of the treaty and a breach of the national faith with the power to whom that faith had been pledged.

On the other hand, it was contended by the opposition, that a treaty which required an appropriation of money, or any other special legislative provision to carry it into effect, was not, so far, of binding obligation, until Congress had adopted the measures necessary for that purpose. The House of Representatives, on this occasion, ultimately passed a resolution requesting the President to lay before them the instructions he had given to Mr. Jay, the minister by whom the treaty had been negotiated, with the correspondence and other papers, so far as they were not improper to be disclosed 011 account of pending negotiations. President Washington declined complying with this request, alleging that a treaty with a foreign power, when duly made by the President and Senate, became the supreme law of the land; that the assent of the House of Representatives was not necessary to its validity; and therefore the papers requested could not properly be required for the use of the House, unless for the purpose of impeachment, which was not stated to be the object of the call. The House, therefore, passed , resolutions disclaiming the power of interfering in



the making of treaties, but asserting its right, whenever stipulations were made within tlse legislative competence of Congress, to deliberate and decide as to the expediency of carrying them into effect.

Such is certainly the practice in other constitutional governments, - as in England, where the commercial articles of the treaty of Utrecht with France, though duly made and ratified by the crown, remained unexecuted, because Parliament refused to pass the laws necessary to give effect to their provisions. So also in France, as we have seen by the recent example of the treaty of indemnities with the United States,' the Chambers assert the right of controlling, by their votes, the appropriations of money, or other specific legislative provisions, which may be required to carry into effect treaties concluded by the crown with foreign powers.

In March, 1816, Mr. Pinkney was again called into the service of his country in a diplomatic capacity. In order to understand the motives which had repeatedly induced him to go abroad in the same service, it is necessary to advert to some of the peculiar circumstances connected with his brilliant success at the bar.

This success was as much the effect of extraordinary labor as of his genius and rare endowments of mind. His continued application to study,


WILLI .... PINKNEY.

wntmg, and public speaking, which a physical constitution, rivalling in strength his intellectual, enabled him to keep up with a singular perseverance, was one of the most remarkable features of his character. He was never satiated with investigating his causes, and took infinite pains in exploring their facts and circumstances, and all the technical learning connected with them. He constantly continued the practice of private declamation as a useful exercise, and was in the habit of prelneditating his pleadings at the bar and other public speeches, not only as to the general order or method to be observed in treating his subject, the authorities to be relied on, and the leading topics of illustration, but fi'equently as to the principal passages and rhetorical, embellishments. These last he sometimes wrote out beforehand; not that he felt himself deficient in facility or fluency, but in order to preserve the command of a correct and elegant diction.

All those who have heard him address a jury, or a deliberative assembly, well know,that he was a consummate master of the arts of extemporaneous debating. But he believed, with the most celebrated and successful orators of antiquity, that the habit of written composition is necessary to acquire and preserve a style at once correct and graceful in public speaking; which, without this aid, is apt to degenerate into colloquial negligence,



and to become enfeebled by tedious verbosity. His law papers were drawn up with great care ; his written opinions were elaborately composed, both as to matter and style, and frequently exhausted, by a full discussion, the questions submitted for his consideration.

If to all these circumstances·be added the fact, that he engaged in the perfonnance of his professional duties with unusual zeal, ever regarding his own reputation as at stake, as well as the rights and interests of his client, - and sensibly alive to every thing which might affect either, and that he spoke with great ardor and vehemence; it must be evident, that the most robust constitution would not be sufficient to sustain such intense and unintennitted labor, where every exertion was a contest for victory, and each new success a fresh stimulus to ambition.

Those who are curious to see, to what extent of professional excellence such power of application, allied with such force of body and mind, may carry a man in a particular science, may regret that he ever wandered beyond the rugged paths of his profession into another field, for the cultivation Qf which he was not, perhaps, so liberally endowed by nature. It seems, however, that he found it necessary to vary his occupations, and to retire altogether from the bar for a season, in order to refresh his wearied body and mind, with the


WILLIAJI PINKNEY. 57

purpose of again returning to it with an alacrity invigorated and quickened by this temporary suspension of his professional pursuits.

He was then induced to accept the appointment, tendered to him by President Monroe, of envoy to the court of Russia, and of special minister to that of Naples, the object of which last mission was, to demand indemnity from the restored government of that kingdom, for the losses sustained by our merchants in consequence of the seizure and confiscation of their property during the reign of Murat. After he had fulfilled the duties of the special mission, he was to proceed to St. Petersburg as minister plenipotentiary to that court. He avowed the motives which induced him to accept this double mission, in a conversation with one of his friends, in which he said, "There are those among my friends,who wonder that I will go abroad, however honorable the service. They know not how I toil at the bar; they know not all my anxious days and sleepless nights; I must breathe awhile; the bow for ever bent will break." " Besides," he added, "I want to see Italy; the orators of Britain I have heard; but I want to visit that classic land, the study of whose poetry and eloquence is the charm of my life; I shall set my foot on its shores with feelings that I cannot describe, and return with new enthusiasm, I hope with new advantages, to the habits of public speaking."



The business of his mission to Naples was completelyevaded by the artifices of the Neapolitan court, who hastened his departure by pretences, which they had no difficulty in laying aside when he was fairly out of Naples. His instructions did not allow him to wait even for an answer to the note he had presented to the minister of foreign affairs, and he proceeded through Rome, and the other principal Italian cities, to Vienna. From the latter capital, he pursued his way, through Poland, to Petersburg, where he remained about two years, attending to the duties of the mission, pursuing his favorite studies with unwearied alacrily, and at the same time cultivating the elegant society by which he was surrounded.

His peculiar personal habits were formed by his intercourse with th~ higher circles abroad. His personal neatness, and minute attention to dress, were carried to an extreme which exposed him, while at home, to the charge of foppery and affectation. But it should be remembered, how large a portion of his life he had spent in the higher circles of European society. Though he always piqued himself upon being a finished and elegant gentleman, yet his manners and habits of dress were undoubtedly acquired in Europe; and, so far from being remarkable there, they were merely in accordance with the common and established usages of men of his l'Ilnk and station. All, who


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 59

have been at any of the European court!:!, know, that their public men consider it a necessary part of their character, to pay great attention to the elegance and refinements of life; and, after a day, passed in the laborious discharge of their official duties, will spend their evenings in society, and contribute their full share of pleasant trifling. It is their maniere d' etre.

:Mr. Pinkney returned from Russia in the summer of 1818, and once more resumed his professional habits and occupations with as much alacrity I.IS if he had never left them. At the following session of the Supreme Court, he delivered, upon the question of the right of the States to tax the national Bank, perhaps his ablest and most eloquent forensic oration, the principles of which were adopted by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the judgment of the Court. In 1819, he was elected by the legislature of Maryland a Senator in Congress.

Soon after he took his seat in the Senate, h~ delivered his famous speech against the clause in the Bill passed by the House of Representatives; for the admission of Missouri into the Union, upon condition that the introduction of slaves into the new State should be prohibited. The question was finally settled by the House abandoning this clause, and substituting for it a provision pro-



hibiting slavery in the vacant territory to the north and west of Missouri.

In 1821, he made, in the Supreme Court, in the case of Cohens against the State of Virginia, an elaborate argument in favor of the appellate jurisdiction of the Court, in cases determined in the State involving the constitutionality of the laws and treaties of the Union. His reasoning in favor of the jurisdiction was adopted by the Court; and it has since been regarded as one of those points of constitutional law, which are most conclusively and satisfactorily established. Indeed, it is not easy to see, how the supremacy of the constitution and laws of the Union could be peaceably maintained against the inroads of jarring State legislation, without the exercise of this jurisdiction by the supreme federal tribunal, which is also essential to preserve that uniformity of interpretation, without which our complicated system of government would soon become a mere chaos of conflicting authorities.

Mr. Pinkney continued his professional labors at the session of the Court in 1822, with the same intense application and burning thirst of professional fame,which had marked his splendid career. He also took a part in the preliminary discussions in the Senate upon the bill for establishing uniform laws of Bankruptcy throughout the Union, an ob-


WILLI All PINKNEY. 61

ject which he had much at heart. He prepared himself for the debate upon the Maryland proposition, relating to the appropriation of the public lands belongiBg to the United States for the purposes of education.

But his busy life was hurrying to a conclusion. He had exerted himself intemperately in the preparation and argument of a cause of peculiar interest, at a time when the state of his health unfitted him for application to study and business. On the 17th of February, he was attacked by a severe indisposition, doubtless produced by this effort. He mentioned to the writer of this sketch, that he had sat up very late in the night on which he was taken ill, to read Scott's romance of the " Pirate," then just published, and made many remarks respecting it, - drawing comparisons between the two heroines, and criticizing the narrative and style with his usual confident and decided tone, and in a way which showed that his imagination had been a good deal excited by the perusal.

From this period, till his decease, he was a considerable part of the time in a state of delirium. In his lucid intervals, his mind reverted to his favorite studies and pursuits, on which, whenever the temporary suspension of his bodily sufferings enabled him, he conversed with great freedom and animation. He seems, however, to have anticipated that his illness must have a fatal termination,



and to have awaited the event with patient fortitude. After a course of acute suffering, he breathed his last on the night of the 25th of February. His funeral was honored by the attendance of the members of both Houses of Congress, of the executive government, the judges and bar of the Supreme Court, and a numerous concourse of citizens, with all those marks of reverential sorrow and respect due to the character and eminent station of the deceased.

At his death, he had not quite completed his fifty-eighth year, an age at which men begin to regard the termination of life, as an object not very remote. But his person was yet robust, his complexion florid, and his general appearance such, aided as it was by the studied carefulness of his toilet, as to give a strong impression of vigorous health and tenaciousness of life. The force of his faculties too, which were not only unimpaired, but seemed only then to have attained full ripeness; the brilliancy of a career, in which, though so long a victor, he was every day winning fresh laurels by fresh exertions; the very keenness of his relish for those gathered fruits of his fame, and for the charms of a life so eminently successful; all these, as they seemed to promise a long postponement of ... the common doom, rendered it more deeply affecting to the imagination when it thus suddenly arrived. Apparently, however, he did not himself


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 63

regard the seeds of his fate as so far from their developement.

His sanguine temperament and plethoric habit of body led him to apprehend a sudden decay of life, or, at least, of his faculties; and he has b!3en heard to speak of the fate of that celebrated lawyer, Luther Martin, as not unlikely to be his own in this particular. He was spared, however, the worst of the maladies of age. He did not linger through those melancholy displays of imbecility, which are caused by the receding tide of life, but seemed to rush to the termination of his course as the busy torrent dashes onward to the sea.

His death produced, both in the metropolis and through the country, a deep and remarkable sensation. We call it remarkable, because it is seldom that mere professional renown, disconnected as it is from popular passion, obtains for itself, in so great a degree, this last and melancholy reward of genius. Nor can we impute it, certainly, even in the case of the remarkable individual in question, distinguished as were his services at the bar, in the Senate, and in foreign affairs, to any fear that the active business of the world would suffer any pause from his death. The theatre of busy life never wants actors, and few are they who may flatter themselves, that their exit will produce either disorder or vacancy in the scene. These losses of society are soon repaired. Other talents,



till then crowded from the stage, press forward in the eager competition; and we daily see the tomb close on virtue and genius, with as little perceptible effect on the great social machine, as on the sun and the breeze, which are feigned, in the elegiac strains of the poet, to darken and sigh over their decay.

We must refer, then, to some other source our strong emotion on the death of one of these intellectual heroes. Perhaps the harsh contrasts, always suggested by death, are heightened by the mental power and activity, which belong to genius. We contemplate with pain the sudden extinction of this subtile spirit, now become insensible to its slowwon honors, and incapable of dispensing the gathered treasures of thought and knowledge. There was something astounding in the hasty close of a career, marked, like Mr. Pinkney's, by such untiring energy to the last, and animated by the consenting applauses of partisan friends and rival competitors.

Few men ever earned those "garlands of the tomb" by a more inflexible pursuit of them through a long life. In him the zeal of reputation was not one of many impulses obeyed by turns, and exciting him at intervals to unusual exertion. It was ever present and predominant, urging him, even more than the appetite of knowledge, to the perpetual increase of his intellectual


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 65

stores. His emulation was boundless. "I never heard him allow," said a friend of his, "that any man was his superior in any thing j in field sports, in music, in drawing j and especially in oratory, on which his great ambition rested."

Towards the end of. his life, he devoted himself almost exclusively to intellectual exertion of some kind. "Thought," to borrow the phrase of one who knew him well, "appeared to be the very breath of his mind." Study was necessary to his spirit, and so far from laborious, that when not engaged in it, or in some active corporeal exercise, he evinced very restless and uneasy feelings. On journeys, 'he read constantly in his carriage, and even studied his causes there. A life thus wholly. "dedicated to closeness and the bettering of his mind," did not require that methodical distribution, which inferior intellects resort to, as a substitute for the power of constant application j nor did his various engagements permit this rigorous adherence to method.

His hours of study varied according to circumstances j but they increased progressively with age. He slept little, and always with a light in his chiunber j and might be heard stirring there at the earliest dawn, often retiring to bed again after several hours'reading. He ate rapidly, drank wine freely at his meals, but never sat long at table, except on special occasions; and could retire

VOL. VI. 5



at all times to his study with a mind disposed to severe labor.

Having already anticipated most of the particulars, which must be combined in order to form a just estimate of the eminent person, of whom we have endeavored to collect a few scattered traits, we will not detain the reader by attempting to blend them into a studied portrait. In tracing the principal outlines of his public character, his professional talents and attainments must necessarily occupy the most prominent place. To extraordinary natural endowments he added deep and various knowledge in his profession. A long course of study and practice had wedded him to the science of jurisprudence. His peculiar intellectual powers were most conspicuous in this science, and his principal labors as a legislator were on topics connected with it.

He had felt himself originally attracted to its study by that invincible inclination, and that strong instinct, which point genius to its true vocation; it was his main pursuit in life; and he never entirely lost sight of it in his occasional deviations into other pursuits and employments.. The lures of political ambition and the charms of polished society, or, perhaps, a vague desire of unhlersal accomplishment and general applause, might sometimes tempt him to stray for a season from the path, which the original bent of his genius had


WILLIAII PINKNEY. 67

assigned him. B~t he ever returned, with fresh ardor and new delight, to his appropriate vocation. He was devoted to the law with a true enthusiasm; and his other studies and pursuits, so far as they had a fixed and serious object, were valued chiefly as they might minister to this idol of his affections. It was in his profession, that he found himself at home; in this consisted his pride and his pleasure ; for, as he said, "the bar is not the place to acquire or preserve a false or fraudulent reputation for talents," and on that theatre he felt conscious of possessing those powers, which would command success.

Even when abroad, he never entirely neglected his legal studies. But when at home, and actively engaged in the practice of his profession, he toiled with almost unparalleled industry. All other pursuits, the pleasures of society, and even the repose which nature demands, were sacrificed to

this engrossing object. His character, in this respect, affords a bright example for the imitation of the younger members of the profession. This entire devotion to his professional pursuits was continued, with unremitting perseverance, to the end of his career. If the celebrated Talon could say of the still more celebrated D' Aguesseau, on hearing his first speech at the bar, "that he would willingly end as that young man commenced," ~very youthful aspirant to forensic fame among us



might wish to begin his professional exertions with the same love of labor, and the same ardent desire of distinction, which marked the efforts of William Pinkney throughout his life ••

This intense application and burning ambition continued to animate his labors to the last moments of his existence. He continually held up the very highest standard of excellence in this noble career, and pursued it with unabated diligence and zeal, keeping all his faculties continually upon the stretch, as if his entire reputation was staked upon each particular exertion. He guarded with anxious and jealous solicitude the fame thus acquired. The writer well remembers in the last, and one of his ablest pleadings, in the Supreme Court, remonstrating with him upon the necessity of his refraining from such laborious efforts in the actual state of his health, and with what vehemence he replied, "That he did not desire to live a mo-

• "M. D' AaUESSEA.U avait fait Ie premier essai de ses talens dansla charge d'Avocat au Chitelet, ou il entra a l'age de vingt-un ans; et quoiqu'il ne l'eut exercee que quelques mois, son pere ne douta pas qu'il ne rut pas capable de remplir une troisieme charge d'Avocat-G4!nera! au Parlement, qui venait d'etre cre4!e. n y parut d'abord avec tant d'4!clat, que Ie celebre DENIS T A.LON, alolS Pr4!sident a Mortier, dit qu'il voudrait jinir comme ce jeune homme commenl(ait." - .Ilbrlg~ de la Pit • JV. Ie C'hancelitr d' .I1guu8eau.


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 69

ment after the standing he had acquired at the bar was lost, or even brought into doubt or question."

What might not be expected from professional emulation, directed by such an ardent spirit and such singleness of purpose, even if sustained by far inferior abilities! But no abilities, however splendid, can command success at the bar, without intense labor and persevering application. It was these, which secured to Mr. Pinkney the most extensive and lucrative· practice ever acquired by any American lawyer, and which raised him to such an enviable height of professional eminence. For many years, he was the acknowledged head of the bar in his native State; and, during the last ten years of his life, the principal period of his attendance in the Supreme national court, he enjoyed the reputation of having been rarely equalled, and perhaps never excelled, in the power of reasoning upon legal subjects. This was the faculty, which most remarkably distinguished him.

His mind was acute and subtile, and at the same time comprehensive in its grasp; rapid and clear in its conceptions, and singularly felicitous in the exposition of the truths it was employed in investigating. He seemed to have an unlimited command of the greatest variety of the most beautiful and appropriate diction, and the faculty of adorning the dry est and most unpromising subjects. His style does not appear to have been originally


70 A)[ERICAN BIOGRAPHY.

modelled after any particular standard, or imitated from the example of any particular writer or speaker. It was apparently fonned from his peculiar manner of investigating and illustrating the subjects with which he had to deal, and was impressed with the stamp of his vigorous and comprehensive intellect. When it had received all the improvement, which his maturer studies and experience in the practice of extemporaneous and written composition enabled him to give it, his diction more nearly approached to the model of that pure, copious, and classical style, which graced the judicial eloquence of Sir William Scott, than to any other known standard. It had somewhat more of amplitude, and fulness, and variety of illustration, and of that vehement energy, which is looked for in the pleadings of an advocate, but which would be unbecoming the judgment-seat. It also borrowed occasionally the copiousness, force, and idiomatic grace, with the boldness and richness of metaphor, which distinguish the elder writers of English prose. But, in all its essential qualities, Mr. Pinkney's style was completely fonned long before he had the advantage of studying any of these models of eloquence. The fragments of his works, which have been published,.

• See "Some Account of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of William Pinkney. By Henry Wheaton. 1826."


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 71

wi)) enable the reader to fonn some judgment both of its characteristic exce))ences and defects.

After all, the great fame of his eloquence must rest mainly on tradition, as no complete memorials of his most interesting speeches at the bar, or in the Senate, have been preservf'd. Much of the reputation of an orator depends upon those glowing thoughts and expressions, which are struck out in the excitement and wannth of debate, and which even the speaker himself is afterwards unable to

recover. Most of the poetry of eloquence is of this evanescent character. The beautiful imagery, which is produced in this manner from the excitement of a rich and powerful mind, withers and perishes as soon as it springs into existence. The attempt to replace it by rhetorical ornament, subsequently prepared in the cold abstraction of the closet, is seldcm successful. Hence, some portions of Mr. Pinkney's speeches, which were begun to be written out by himself with the intention of publishing them, will be found, perhaps, to be somewhat too much elaborated, and to bear the marks of studied ornament and excessive polish.

The writer is, however, enabled to assert from his own recollection, that, whilst they have certainly lost in freshness and vigor by this process, in no instance have these more striking passages been improved in variety and richness of ornament, or splendor of diction. Indeed, he often


'1'2 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY.

poured forth too great a profusion of rhetorical imagery in extemporaneous speaking. His style was frequently too highly wrought and embellished, and his elocution too vehement and declamatory for the ordinary purposes of forensic discussion. But whoever has listened to him eVtln upon a dry and complicated question of mere technical law, where there seemed to be nothing on which the mind delighted to fasten, must recollect what a charm he diffused over the most arid and intricate discussions by the clearness and purity of his language, and the calm flow of his graceful elocution, which seemed only to chafe, and swell, and over., leap its natural channel, when encountering some mightier theme.

His favorite mode of reasoning was from the analogies of law, tracing up its technical rules to their original principles and historical sources. He followed the precept given by Pliny, and sowed his arguments broad-cast, amplifying them by every variety of illustration of which the subject admitted, and deducing from them a connected series of propositions and corollaries, gaining in beautiful gradations on the mind, and linked together by an adamantine chain of reasoning.

Of the extent and solidity of his legal attainments, it would be difficult to speak in adequate terms, without the appearance of exaggeration. He was profoundly versed in the ancient learning


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 73

of the common law, its technical peculiarities,and feudal origin. Its subtile distinctions and artificial logic were familiar to his early studies, and 'enabled him to ex.pound with admirable force and perspicuity the rules of real property. He was familiar with every branch of commercial law; and superadded, at a later period of his life, to his other legal attainments, an extensive acquaintance with the principles of public law and the practice of the prize-courts. In his legal studies, he preferred the original text writers and reporters, (e fO'Rtilnu kaurire,) to all those digests, abridgments, and elementary treatises, which lend so many convenient helps and facilities to the modem lawyer, but which he considered as adapted to form sciolists, and to encourage indolence and superficial habits of investigation. His favorite law-book was the CokeLittleton, which he had read many times. Its principal texts were treasured up in his memory, and his arguments at the bar abounded with perpetual recurrences to the princIples and analogies drawn -from this rich mine of common law learnmg.

Different estimates have been made of the extent and variety of his merely literary accomplishments. He was not what is commonly called a learned man; but he excelled in those branclles of human knowledge, which he had cultivated as auxiliary to his principal pnrsuit. Among his other accomplishments, (as has been before noticed,) he



was a thorough master of the English language, its grammar and idiom, its terms and significations, its prosody, and, in short, its whole structure and vocabulary. Speaking with reference to any high literary standard, his early education was defective. He had doubtless acquired in early life some knowledge of classical literature, but not sufficient to satisfy his own ideas of what was necessary to support the character of an accomplished scholar.

He used to relate to his young friends an anecdott!, which explains one of the motives which induced him, at a mature age, after he had risen to eminence, to review and extend his classical studies. It illustrates, at the same time, one of the most remarkable 'traits of his character, that resolution and firmness of purpose, with which he devoted himself to the acquisition of any branch of knowledge he deemed it desirable to possess. During his first residence in England, some question of classical literature was discussed at table in a social party where he was present, and the guests, in tum, gave their opinions upon it. Mr. Pinkney being silent for some time, an appeal was made to him for his opinion, when he had the mortification of being compellp.d to acknowledge that he was unacquainted with the subject. In consequence of this incident he was induced to resume his classical studies, and actually put himself under the care of an instructor for the purpose


WILLIAM PINKNEY. .75

of reviewing and extending his acquaintance with ancient literature.

The acquisition of such knowledge may be recommended, and no doubt was sought by him for a higher purpose than merely completing the circle of liberal accomplishments. He never after neglected to cultivate attainments which he found so useful in enlarging his knowledge of his own language, improving his. taste, and strengthening and embellishing IJis forensic style. Attempts have recently been made, unduly to depreciate the utility of classical learning; and certainly the expediency of devoting so large a portion of time as is allotted to the acquisition of the languages of Greece and Rome in the education of the higher classes in England, and of all classes in Germany, ., may well be questioned.

But in this country, at least, there is no fear that our youth will be saturated with classical learning, so as to leave neither time nor capacity for the acquisition of other knowledge more directly useful in the active business of life. The discipline of the mind, and the cultivation of the taste, in the earlier period of youth, is best promoted by the study of languages. " The memory is then more susceptible and tenacious of impressions; and the learning of languages being chiefly the work of memory, it seems precisely fitted to

the powers of this period, which is long enough,



too, for acquiring the most useful modem, as well as ancient languages." «0 And we may add, that the bright examples of ancient virtue, and the perfect models of ancient taste, are best studied in the originals. That generous love of freedom, of fame, and of country, which was the animating soul of the Greek and Roman republics, cannot be too early imbibed by the youth of every free state. Whilst they are taught duly to estimate the more wise and perfect organization of modem societies, they should be warmed and cheered with those noble sentiments which illumine the pages of the eloquent writers of antiquity, which are the best fruits, and, at the same time, the surest preservatives of liberal institutions.

During the whole course of his active and busy life, Mr. Pinkney pursued his professional studies, and those connected with the English language and literature, with the strictest method and the most resolute perseverance. In other respects, he seems to have read in the most desultory manner possible; in such away, perhaps, as any man would be likely to pursue, who, with a vigorous intellect and a disposition to industry, had no ,very precise object before him but to gratify his curiosity and to keep pace with the current literature of the day.

• JEFFERSON'S NoteIJ, Query XlV.


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 77

His tenacious memory enabled him to retain the stores of miscellaneous knowledge he had thus acquired. His mind was enriched with literary and historical anecdote, which constituted the principal interest of his conversation, the charm of which was heightened by the facility and habitual elegance of his colloquial style. Among the modern English classics, Johnson and Gibbon were his favorite prose writers, chiefly, perhaps, because he thought their elaborate and elevated rhetorical style- proper models for an orator. Pope and Milton were his chosen poets. In the copy of the last, in the possession of his family, all the remarkable passages are underlined, and he quoted them with readiness from memory. Comus he distinguished as the best sustained of English poelDS, in the elegant and various felicity of its diction, and was fond of reciting aloud the passages which he deemed most remarkable for h8.1'mony and beauty of thought and expression.

He piqued himself on his critical knowledge of the elegances of his own tongue; and, though he may have overrated his taste, his knowledge on this point was confessedly minute and extensive. His table was generally furnished with half a dozen works on prosody, and as many dictionaries; and he frequently indulged himself in a fancy for coining new words, or reviving obsolete ones, and then defending them by analogy, or by



the authority of the classics. Of his euphuism, for so we may call it, which he sometimes displayed at the bar, to the annoyance of his less literate brethren, he left a somewhat divelting record. It is a copy of a bulky dictionary published some years ago in this country, all grievously underscored, and full of marginal remarks, petitions, and interrogatories addressed to the author, written with playful spleen, and craving to know the reason of the multifarious impurities which he had cast into the "well of English undefiled."

He possessed, in an eminent degree, that r0-

bustness of constitution, which is hardly less necessary in study, than Napoleon deemed it in war. His recreations were mostly of that sort deemed favorable to bodily health; he ·was attached to field sports, and excelled in them; and, though he seemed almost indefatigable, generally returned from his sporting excursions overcome with fatigue. But as he was of a sanguine and melancholy temperament, he was apt to fancy himself ill. At. such times, he diverted himself with games of skill, in which he was a proficient, such as chess, draughts, and the· like. He was once quite a' capital billiard-player, and seldom met his equal in whist.

During his residence in England, he amused himself very much with his children, who were then young, mixing occasionally in their most


WILLIAM PINKNEY. 79

childish sports. He used there to draw for one of his sons almost every night, and, what perhaps few persons know, he handled the pencil like a master. He assisted, moreover, in teaching one of his daughters music, to which task he brought a good deal of skill and an admirable ear. He was fond of the best novels, and, by way of mental dissipation, sometimes liked to hear the worst; and, when exhausted in mind, or depressed in spirits, would listen to any trash from the Minerva press, French novels, and fairy tales. The company of young persons, especially those of talent, was very attractive to him; and, when occasion presented itself, he was pleased to do them any service. When they were assembled in his house, he would saunter from his study to the adjoining parlor, mingle in the topic or the jest of the moment, and then return. This he would repeat many times in an evening.

Whether he was endowed by nature with those large and comprehensive views, and that extensive knowledge of mankind, which constitute the essential qualities of a great statesman, and which would have fitted him to take a leading part in the political affairs of his country, and to guide its public councils in those moments of difficulty, when "a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent,".- is a question which we have no adequate means of determining. His



diplomatic correspondence will show, indeed, that he was perfectly competent to maintain his own reputation for general talent, and to acquit himself in a manner creditable to his country, when brought in contact with the ablest and most practised of European statesmen, - with a Canning and a Wellesley. But that correspondence bears evident marks, throughout, of the constraint imposed upon it by the nature of his instructions from our government, which forbade him from replying to the sarcastic taunts and affected indifference of those haughty ministers, in other than those conciliatory terms, which, both at home and abroad, were unhappily mistaken for the effects of fear of provoking hostilities between the two countries.

It is principally in his private correspondence with President Madison, that we perceive how capable Mr. Pinkney was of appreciating the mighty scenes which were then passing before him, and the characters and motives of the actors, who, intent upon the great European drama, disdained to consider what . might be the consequences of calling into existence another naval power capable of contesting that supremacy, which England had acquired on the ocean. He rightly concluded, that it was not by appeals to her justice or her policy, but by fairly wrestling with her on her own element, that England could be taught to respect us.


WILLIA.M PINKNEY. 81

But, as has been before observed, his profession was the engrossing pursuit of his life; and beyond that, his talents shone most conspicuously in those senatorial discussions, which fall within the province of the constitutional lawyer. In the various questions relating to the interpretation of the federal constitution, discussed in the Supreme Court, his depth of learning and powers of reasoning contributed very much to enlighten its judgments. In the discussion of that class of causes, especially, which, to use his own expressions, "presented the proud spectacle of a peaceful review of the conflicting sovereign claims of the government of the Union and the particular States; by this more than Amphictyonic council," his arguments were characterized by a fervor, earnestness, gravity, eloquence, and force of reasoning, whicb convinced all who heard him that he delivered his own sentiments as a citizen, and was not merely solicitous to discharge his duty as an advocate. He exerted an intellectual vigor proportioned to the magnitude of the occasion. He saw in it "a pledge of tbe immortality of the Union, of a perpetuity of national strength and glory, increasing and brightening with age, of concord at home, and reputation abroad."

As to the general nature and operation of our federative system, he tbought with the illustrious authors of the Letters of PUBLIUS,-

VOL. VI. 6



with Madison, Jay, and Hamilton,-that, like other similar fonns of government recorded in history, "its tendency was rather to anarchy among the members, than tyrann1 in the head," and that a general government, at least as energetic as that intended to be established by the framers of the constitution, was indispensably necessary to secure the great objects of the Union.

Believing these to be, generally speaking, in more peril from excessi ve jealousy on the part of the respective members of the confederacy, than from encroachments by the central government, he carried the weight of his support to that side of the vessel of state which he thought to be in danger of losing its equipoise. Absolute unanimity is not to be expected on questions of such intrinsic difficulty as spring up on the debatable ground, which imperfectly marks the boundaries between the State and national sovereignties. Still less is it to be looked for in the discussion of such controversies as that arising from the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union, where so many deep-seated prejudices and passions mingled in the debate, and a contest for political power and claims of private interest were involved in the result. That mighty tempest at one time seemed to shake the Union to its centre, and, in the langnage of Mr. Pinkney, threatened to "push from its moorings the sacred ark of the common safety,


WILLIAM PINKNE!'. 83

and to drive this gallant vessel, freighted with every thing dear to an American bosom, upon the rocks, or lay it a sheer hulk upon the ocean." The agitation of the billows has not yet subsided; and a distant posterity will alone be capable of pronouncing an impartial judgment upon the merits of a question, complicated of so many considerations of humanity, of policy, and of constitional power.

But a spirit of liberality may even now tolerate an honest difference of opinion on such a subject. It should be the part of the wise and the good to pour oil over this angry sea, to endeavor to cabo the passions excited by that discussion, rather than to revive them in new shapes still more portentous to the peace and happiness of our country. Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the part which Mr. Pinkney took in this question, all unprejudiced minds ought, we think, to concur in the sentiment expressed by him at the close of his speech in the Senate on that memorable occasion.

After alluding to the ambitious motives which were imputed to some of those engaged in this controversy, he added; "For myself I can truly say, that I am wholly destitute of what is commonly called ambition. It is said that ambition is the disease of noble minds. If it be so, mine must be a vulgar one; for I have nothing to desire in this world but professional fame, health and



competence for those who are dear to me, a 100& list of mends among the wise and the virtuous, aad honor and prosperity for my country. But,if I possessed any faculties, by the exertion of which, at a moment like the present, I could gain a place in the affectionate remembrance of my countrymen, and connect my humble name with the stabilityof the American Union by tranquillizing the alarms which are now believed to endanger it, I know of no reward on this side the grave, save oo1y that of an approving conscience, which, put in comparison with it, I should think worthy of a sigh, if lost; of exultation, if obtained."·

• The materials for this memoir have been drawa from the author's larger work, entitled "Some Account of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of William Pinkney "; and also from an article on that work in the North American Review.


lives of william pinkney, william ellery, and cotton mather

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